The present invention relates to a method and to a system for transferring an electronic sum of money from a credit memory to an account or to another credit memory via a telecommunications and data network.
Besides for use as a communication vehicle and a source of information for what has now become hundreds of millions of people, the Internet is becoming increasingly important as a source of shopping. Particularly trade in software, books and travel is already being carried out on the Internet in a significant proportion today, but also a broad spectrum of other goods and services is increasingly being ordered and paid for over the Internet. Paying for the relevant services on the Internet in the manner which was established originally and is still generally widespread today requires the relevant data records to be input separately in each case, at least by each party to the transaction, if not even for the individual transaction. This mode of payment thus allows the party to the transaction to see sensitive personal data and even to store them permanently.
The Internet now also has become considerably important for handling other payment operations in the business and private sectors. Virtually all banks in industrial states offer electronic handling of account management and of payment operations in the form of “electronic banking”.
Nevertheless, the majority of payment operations in day-to-day life are, even today, still performed using cash or by providing transfer or direct debit orders or the like in writing, or by credit card or check card. In specific areas, such as in mobile radio technology, electronic credits (“prepaid cards”) have also become significant, but considerable obstacles prevent this way of paying from being introduced on a widespread basis.
Altogether, it can be stated that, in the current state of development, there are an extremely confusing large number of options for paying for goods or services, and using these options in day-to-day life requires considerable alertness and a wide variety of media and modes of entry to be dealt with. This is demanding and is also associated with diverse security risks (losing data media or credit media, forgetting account data and authentication codes etc.).
Besides the Internet, telecommunications (particularly, mobile telecommunications) today represents an area of rapid technical and economic development and a significant source of economic growth and new social developments. For many of the people in industrial states, the mobile telephone (“mobile”) is increasingly becoming a universal communication and information instrument and is also increasingly being used to access goods and services. This development is also still hindered by insufficient opportunities for reliable and, at the same time, simple payment for information, goods and services ordered using a mobile.
Although solutions exist which allow the user of a mobile, with or without a prepaid card, to authorize payments, which are then processed in a conventional manner by debit procedures or credit card debiting, these methods presuppose, as do payment processing procedures which now have been introduced on the Internet, that the purchaser is creditworthy and has authority to use a credit card or a current account with an overdraft facility. In addition, these procedures have inherent time lags which have an adverse effect on the transparency and reliability of the overall processing.
The present invention is, therefore, directed toward specifying a method and a system for simplified processing of payment transactions using a data network.